Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

thenextweb.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 366 posts

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#301

Post by vorpalhex »

jw1224 wrote: post #231
troebr wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't that bad. Some influencer videos, music, prank videos, sports, a couple niche youtubers, some video games. I saw a couple educational videos in there too. Sure the influencer stuff is pretty stupid, but whatever, it's not harmful.

Influencers are very often harmful. 1. Their aspirational lifestyles perpetuate feelings of inadequacy amongst their viewers, especially when their target market is often predominantly young people. Their audiences grow up with self doubt and anxiety by comparing their lives to that of the influencers they follow. 2. They are in the pockets of their advertisers and sponsors. Any recommendations they make are inherent…

If someone else having a nice life makes you feel your life is bad, your life may actually be bad. If you spend your days working and feeling unfulfilled and wish you could be the person restoring a ghost town or exploring the arctic... that's a signal.

Humans aren't farm animals meant to be kept nicely penned up.

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#302

Post by triangleman »

bArray wrote: post #90

The recommendations are now almost completely inescapable if you want to continue using their service. They recently did away with email notifications for new content [1] and now the RSS export feature for subscriptions has been removed [2]. I refuse to interface with their algorithm, so I've begun hunting down alternative video hosts and the personal sites of the creators I can find and am preparing to leave their p…

You could use a greasemonkey-style script to modify youtube.

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#303

Post by mlacks »

I have three rules for Youtube:

1. I have two or three accounts specifically for what i want to view. I have an account where I only see video editing tips/how-to's, and a separate account for real estate, a separate account for personal interests, etc.

2. When I invariably see something interesting outside of my normal account's spectrum, sure I watch it - but I make sure and delete it from my history.

3. I aggressively click "don't recommend this again" for anything that falls outside of the account's focus.

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#304

Post by scrollaway »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #257
scrollaway wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just prefix any URL with this exactly: https://web.archive.org/save/ Example: https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v... If it's already saved, it'll do a new snapshot, but I believe the archive is smart enough not to duplicate saved youtube videos.

I tried this and it keeps saying job failed.

Looks like the Archive is having some trouble today, but it's also getting throttled because the link is getting clicked a lot. the /save/ link will redirect you to a saved snapshot of the page; it basically tells the archive "capture this page right now".

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#305

Post by supelr »

I fought with Instagram algorithm, and now my instagram explore feed delights me. I get cool new content that I actually like and enjoy.

I fought with Youtube algorithm, and it's really really lame. I don't get any new creators or quality content. Even the education content it tends to suggest is absolute garbage.

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#306

Post by triangleman »

No one in this thread has mentioned that YouTube recommendations have dramatically changed in 2017, from the heavy conspiracy/sensational/lies videos to something much more "toned down" and IMO rather annoying. It's driving everyone to the mainstream, or perhaps into the mainstream of two camps. At least before, flat earth did not fit into the mainstream of anything.

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#307

Post by nojito »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #60

For me YouTube recommendations are not toxic, they are so amazing I some times wonder how comes the world around is not heaven when everybody has free access to this. That's because I always watch high-quality educational content and some beautiful comforting and inspiring music. So for me YouTube is a fountain of knowledge, visual and musical aesthetics etc. Every day I get inspiration, healthy kind of fun and learn…

Being logged out and in incognito doesn't help.

https://algotransparency.org/?date=23-12-2020

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#308

Post by raobit »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #60

For me YouTube recommendations are not toxic, they are so amazing I some times wonder how comes the world around is not heaven when everybody has free access to this. That's because I always watch high-quality educational content and some beautiful comforting and inspiring music. So for me YouTube is a fountain of knowledge, visual and musical aesthetics etc. Every day I get inspiration, healthy kind of fun and learn…

I do the same, things and topics which is one time watch and don't need recommendation related to it, i watch in incognito

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#309

Post by amadeuspagel »

barrkel wrote: post #5

I find YT does a gradient ascent into more popular videos. I start out listening to a song with 1000 views, I get recommended 10k view songs, then 100k, and before you know it it's back in the mainstream. There's no way to surf a niche, to hunt in a pile of bin ends. I imagine it's similar for conspiracy stuff. It'll point you in the direction of the most convincing nonsense.

> I find YT does a gradient ascent into more popular videos.

Doesn't this totally contradict the claim that youtube pushes people to the extremes?

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#310

Post by traverseda »

crispyambulance wrote: post #172
traverseda wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you just delete the underlying videos from your youtube history? I've had history turned off for a while, so my recommendations are only based on likes, subscriptions, and the actual content I'm watching at that moment. It seems like cleaning/clearing the history would solve the problem?

How do you know that deleting your history does anything? I mean, yes, deleting your history hides what you've been looking at (from you), but does that restrict the recommendation algorithm? Is there a way to know for sure?

It's a pretty stark difference when you have one video in an otherwise blank youtube account vs having zero.
Post reply on HN